Delfina Foundation Offers Safe Harbour with Launch of North American Residency

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A London non-profit institution that has supported over 450 resident artists and curators since 2007 will extend a warm welcome to North American artists from next year.

As a part of its mission statement of providing residency programmes for underserved areas, the Delfina Foundation will spread its initiatives across the Atlantic from January, just as artists in the region face unique challenges.

Founding director Aaron Cezar said fostering ‘intercultural dialogue has never been more important’, especially as ‘opportunities for mobility, cultural exchange, and freedom of expression are increasingly limited and precarious’.

While the foundation has historically focused on Asia and Latin America, Cezar said it felt like ‘a critical moment’ to bring artists from the U.S. and Canada to London as they face ‘unprecedented challenges’.

The foundation’s main residency programme hosts up to 40 artists a year for three months at a time, offering them space to develop their practice, expand professional networks, and display their work.

With a three-month residency on offer, the new initiative will focus on underrepresented groups as the current U.S. administration wages war against diversity initiatives and slashes non-profit funding that have led to the dissolution of fellowships and residencies.

It aims to prioritise Indigenous artists, self-taught practitioners, and people living outside major U.S. and Canadian cities. 

The initiative follows Delfina’s 2023 campaign to secure its future, which sought 7 million GBP to acquire and renovate its central London premises after founder and patron Delfina Entrecanales died in 2022, leaving the building to her grandchildren. 

And as it spreads its wings across the Atlantic, the foundation has found a new network of donors.

New patrons include Liza Mauer (New Museum board member and vice president of Art Gallery of Ontario, Will Palley (tech executive and co-chairman of MoMA’s Young Patrons Council), and Emilia Yin (founding director of L.A. gallery Make Room).

Alumni of the programme have represented their country at the Venice Biennale, with eight artists awarded Golden Lions, and over a dozen nominated for the Turner Prize, including Wael Shawky, Haegue Yang, Chantal Joffe, and 2025 Turner Prize nominee Zadie Xa. —[O]

Main image: Delfina Foundation, London. Courtesy Delfina Foundation. Photo: Anne Tetzlaff.